


Murderbot's Accidental Exchange Program

by coreomajoris (dlemur)



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie, The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Cussing, Gen, Tea, mention of extreme violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 21:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17009607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dlemur/pseuds/coreomajoris
Summary: What if Murderbot had needed to take a few more hops to get to Milu, and had found an uncrewed cargo ship to take it that way? And what if things had gotten... weird... during the journey?This story takes place after the conclusion of Ancillary Mercy, and at the beginning of Rogue Protocol, more or less.





	Murderbot's Accidental Exchange Program

**Author's Note:**

  * For [melannen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/melannen/gifts).



> Melannen, you of all the people who participated in Yuletide this year sounded like the person who would appreciate this wacky thing that was rattling around in my brain, because you were open to Murderbot crossovers. So here you go, a Madness story for you, and I hope you'll forgive that it isn't an ART story. 
> 
> Thank you so much to E for the beta-read and helping me dig into the stylistic differences of these works, and for appreciating the turns that this story took!

I guess I had gotten too comfortable. It was nice to relax for a while, and let a quiet cargo ship with no humans aboard take me two hops closer to Milu. It was pleasant to have the time to catch up on my own viewing, and my own being alone, and my own not having to solve humans' problems. But I felt a spike of concern as the cargo ship--I had taken to just calling it Cargo, to myself--rumbled to a sudden stop.

Cargo had been going through a wormhole, one of two jumps it would make on its journey. All had seemed fine until I heard the rumbling of wasted energy as the wormhole drive powered down. Ships didn't usually just _stop_ that abruptly: even coming out of the slightly seasick feeling of a wormhole, they usually kept going at speed for a while, getting out of the exit and setting a course for their next waypoint.

I sent an inquiry through the ship's feed, only to get images indicating utter confusion, and a request to stand by for more information.

Great. Super. This was not going to go well. Eventually it shared a scan of the system through the ship's feed, at a higher resolution than I could receive on my own, with notations that this was absolutely not where we were supposed to have been dumped out of the wormhole, and in fact, that they had no idea at all where we were.

It said the stars looked unfamiliar, and that was when my performance efficiency dropped to ninety-one percent.

The system scan showed some sort of space station broadcasting from the far end of the system. Or at least, that's what we concluded, as the format was similar to station port authority broadcasts but the language was utterly unfamiliar. Still, it was in the right sort of frequency band that you would expect a station's locating broadcast to be. There were also a few different ships in the system, one of them near near us. It began broadcasting a message that seemed directed at us, and I was horrified when the cargo ship, still completely thrown off, asked me what we should do.

 _Don't shoot, I am a table,_ I thought, and suppressed some highly inappropriate amusement, because this really was the opposite of funny. I'd heard this phrase while working an archaeological survey contract, some time back. One of the scientists joked that it was the perfect sentence to convey that you meant no harm and also didn't speak the language well enough to further explain yourself. The phrase had stuck in my head, even though I hadn't learned it in any other languages yet.

Then again, it made sense to send something that seemed reasonable, and that would hopefully convey that we needed assistance and were having trouble communicating After a moment's further thought I suggested we send them the standard distress call that a disabled ship uses. I hoped it would look similar enough to their standard to be familiar, despite the language barrier. I hoped it would indicate that we were not a threat, were not armed, and needed help. Cargo readily agreed and began transmitting.

Then we waited. I started watching a serial and also reading a book while listening in on the ship's feed. Oh, and I also started pacing the lounge; anything to use some of the adrenaline my organic parts had dumped, that I couldn't put to use. My distraction methods turned out to be a good thing, because there was nothing more for a few hours. Slowly, my operational efficiency crept back up as fear turned to a long period of boredom.

The ship nearest us, possibly a picket of some sort, had kept broadcasting that incomprehensible message, but Cargo alerted me when it changed. The language was archaic, something I'd only ever heard in historic serials, but comprehensible. It asked what sort of assistance we needed, and if we could approach the the ship stationed further into the system under our own power. It noted that we were an unfamiliar ship type broadcasting in an unfamiliar language, and asked us to identify ourselves.

It was very polite, all things considered, so it appeared that our "look harmless and lost" strategy had worked. I quickly composed a reply in the appropriate dialect for Cargo to send, stating that we were off course and that our navigational information could not tell us where we were. I reiterated, now in their dialect, that we were an unarmed cargo ship with one bot aboard. I expressed our interest in approaching for assistance, but indicated that we would await further instructions before moving. Cargo turned off the emergency broadcast, sent this communication, and then we waited.

An answer came back quickly this time, granting us permission to approach the ship which was picketing closer to the station, and giving us navigational procedures. There were multiple persons aboard this ship who would be able to communicate with and attempt to help us, it said. The trip in-system would take 3 days. The cargo ship set its course, and I turned on another serial.

**

They met me in the most aggressively clean docking bay I had ever seen.

I say "me" because of course the cargo ship couldn't present a body to meet them like I could, and also it didn't have the capability to to communicate in words, or to do more than indicate that it needed help and then wait for instructions. So I was carrying a communications relay in the pocket in my torso, and going on my own.

About a day out from rendezvous I realized that I would have to take a shuttle and meet them myself. I didn't know I could miss my helmet and its opaque faceplate even more than I already do. I would have to take the ship's shuttle to meet our hosts, and the cargo ship would only be able to relay information through me. The ship loaded me up with as much information as it could about our expected course, our wormhole route, and the navigation markers we had seen before and would have expected after exit. Hopefully it could answer any questions I had to relay while I was there.

So there I was, lost in space neither I nor Cargo recognized, on a shuttle. I was meeting strangers from who knows where, with no idea of how to greet them, what to say, what their customs were. And it wasn't like I was great at customs and mannerisms to begin with. But at least in this case there was no way to practice at all, and presumably the people at the other end were expecting something alien to them. I hoped, anyway. I hoped and I wished I could just hide in an episode of _Sanctuary Moon_. The lock cycled, the door of my shuttle opened, and their docking door gave a thump and a clunk and swung open. I took a final deep breath of shuttle air, not that I really needed it, and ducked through.

Three people--definitely humanoid, looking very much like humans with some level of augmentation-- stood outside, in some sort of military uniform with smooth, spotless fabrics and soft, spotless gloves. The one in the middle was dressed more formally than the others, with black gloves and a split black and brown jacket. They stepped forward and made a shallow bow of greeting. The one in the middle spoke first.

"Welcome, traveler. We are pleased and honored to meet you, though we understand that it is under trying circumstances.

"I am Fleet Captain Breq, the commander of all of the ships in this system. I am also the representative on this ship of the Provisional Republic of Two Systems."

The Fleet Captain indicated the person to their right, first, and then their left. "This is Seivarden, my Amaat Lieutenant, and this is Ekalu, my Etrepa Lieutenant."  

I returned their shallow bows with as close of an imitation as I could manage without cameras to watch myself. Were they human? They looked close enough to human that I was going to use the term until proven otherwise. Many human greeting customs are about mirroring each other, and hopefully this was a place where my reflection would be considered polite rather than mocking. It was so hard to tell the difference between those situations.

"Thank you, Fleet Captain," I said. "We appreciate your assistance. My name is Eden, and I am the sole crew of my ship. "

Look, I admit it: I did consider calling myself Mensah. Now, I have absolutely no desire to masquerade as one of my favorite humans. But this Murderbot was feeling short on creativity and confidence, to be honest, about introducing myself to unfamiliar humanoid aliens. Or whatever these people were. And if anyone would forgive me for using her name in a situation like this one, it was Mensah. In the end, I decided to go with Eden again, but oh, I wished Mensah, stupidly brave as she sometimes was, were here.

The Fleet Captain nodded. "We would like to offer you our hospitality while you are here. Forgive us if this is a rude question in your culture, but do you eat or drink?"

I blinked, but managed to keep my face neutral. No one had ever asked me that question before. They were very polite, but I was finding entirely new levels of awkwardness. I thought I'd found every level there was!  "That is very kind of you, but I do not. I am a bot unit, and I am traveling to get back to my owner."

The Fleet Captain's expression didn't waver, but the lieutenants each had a flash of reaction. Seivarden looked up and to the left, as if listening, and then made a small wave of one hand, still at their side, and schooled their expression.

"Ah, I understand. Then can we invite you to sit with us as we work on your navigational problem, and give you the chance to ask questions as we do? We think we will also be able to relay information between you and your ship, as well." The Fleet Captain's expression remained impassive, and yet I got the impression there was appreciation for my awkwardness and an interest in helping, behind it. They had the most impressive poker face I had ever seen.

I nodded in agreement, before remembering that perhaps that gesture might mean something different, here. "Yes, Fleet Captain, that would be very helpful."

**

As we walked along the corridor away from their docking bay, I made my first tentative attempt to access this ship's systems and scan for ambient transmissions. Their transmission protocols were very different from ones I was used to, though I could see what frequencies they were using and the basic encoding of their transmissions. I was concerned about cultural cues that I might not be understanding: they were using the feminine pronouns for everyone, and I wasn't sure if that was some sort of default, or whether they were all considered to be female, or whether it was both. Lacking further information, I just did what they did, and went along with it. They even used female pronouns for their ship, which was, they said, a warship named _Mercy of Kalr_. I'll default to "she" for all of them from here, I guess.

All of the people around me seemed to have communication implants of some sort. From the hand motions some of them made and distant expressions they got at times, it looked like many of them were in very frequent contact with the ship's feed. I could detect the traffic and could make guesses as to what some of the parcels of information might be, but it was all organized in an unfamiliar architecture. I kept to passive examination, uncertain what it would take to cause a diplomatic incident--I am very much not a diplomat.

Then I was hailed, loudly, by _Mercy of Kalr_ . This was all internal, but the ship spoke to me in words, and her transmission was incredibly strong and clear. _Welcome, visitor Eden. I can tell that the crew is delighted to meet you._

 _You what?_ I said, because what the fuck. Also, compliments will get you nowhere with this Murderbot. Usually. _How can you tell that?_  

 _I cheated a bit,_ the ship said, and amusement was apparent in the feed. _They have biometrics, and the patterns I am seeing indicate that they’re happy to help and they're curious about you. We have been doing boring diplomatic work for months, and it sounds like your problem may be straightforward, but more interesting. By the way, you can just call me Ship; that's what everyone else does._

Straightforward? I thought. This seemed anything but straightforward to me. Who _were_ these people?

 _Can I ask a question about you?_ Said Ship, still loud as a ringing bell, but very gently, I thought. _It looks from my scans as if you are a constructed being, built of both cybernetic and biological parts. Am I reading my scans correctly?_

 _You are,_ I replied. Then I realized some of the implications of that, namely that she could probably see my energy weapons. _I also have inbuilt weapons,_ I said hesitantly. _But I promise not to use them while on this vessel or near any of your crew. We wish to get assistance and be on our way._

 _That makes sense,_ the Ship replied. _Your ship is for cargo and you seem more like security than a military force. I will alert the Fleet Captain, just to conform to protocol, but she will understand and no one will give you any problems._

Huh. Well, at least that was handled without anyone drawing energy weapons. I decided to ask the ship for more information about their communications technology. _I’m accustomed to there being public feeds on ships and stations; do you have such a thing?_

 _We do,_ she said, _and I have a few different levels of access I could give you. I suspect you'd appreciate the second-highest level of access, which will allow you to see the most things while still maintaining our privacy. Would you like that?_

 _Sure, if you're willing to,_ I said. _How do we set that up?_

Ship transmitted a packet to me containing decryption keys and some instruction sets about their communications technology, and I quickly installed it. Then she opened the feed access to me. It was a flood of raw data, which I could barely begin to parse even with the keys installed. It took a little time for me to set up some filters for the stream of data, and to resolve which things were, say, external cameras, internal cameras, feeds to various hallways and public spaces, et cetera. It was clear that this level of access was already configured as a package of permissions, for those who had the right to use them. These people lived with this gushing well of data all the time? They must have been used to it, but it was a lot, even for me. 

 _Thanks_ , I said, trying not to stagger as I made sense of it.

I was going to have to get used to a ship this smart. Come to think of it, her voice and obviously massive capabilities reminded me a bit of ART. Well, except for the part where ART is an asshole. I kind of missed that asshole. I wondered what ART would have made of this ship. Probably would have annoyed the shit out of it, same as ART did to me. 

**

Half an hour later I was sitting at a table in a very nice meeting room, with the Fleet Captain, as one of her crew quietly did chores in the adjoining kitchen. Her lieutenants had shuffled off to other duties, and if i wanted to, I could watch on Ship's cameras where they were. It looked like I had visual access to nearly everything but private sleeping spaces and their command center, which was really quite trusting on Ship's part until you realized that she was undoubtedly monitoring my usage and could shut it off in a microsecond.

So far, the fleet captain had asked such deft, precise questions that I had managed to be useful and informative, despite my usual urge to talk as little as possible and exist as little as possible. I was much happier now, with cameras to monitor and a feed to listen in on. I still wished I was back in the lounge on the cargo ship, watching a serial, but this wasn't going as badly as I had feared.

These people were more formal than anyone I had ever encountered, though they were pretty gentle about it. Even sitting down in what was clearly an everyday-use meeting room, the Fleet Captain had not taken off her gloves, and her crew simply put impermeable gloves on over their uniform gloves, when they needed to do any sort of cleaning or cooking. Perhaps they were diplomats, accustomed to meeting with unfamiliar people? Or perhaps they were trying to set me at ease with politeness, though if anything, it only made me more worried about my nonexistent manners. And I never worry about my nonexistent manners: manners are for humans, which I am not.

"May one properly inquire about your journey, Eden?" Fleet Captain Breq asked, delicately as ever. 

I nodded, since that seemed to be the polite thing to do. "What would you like to know?" I asked, though I cringed as I thought about what sorts of things she might ask. Oh, I really wasn't cut out for diplomacy.

"You used the term 'owner' when you were explaining where you were going," the Fleet Captain said, and then stopped for a beat before continuing. "I was wondering what sort of arrangement that indicates, in your culture. I realize that you speak a different dialect than the one in common use here. To us, that term implies the legal possession of an item, or even a person. And as such, I should mention that it is not a legally allowed arrangement in the Provisional Republic of Two Systems for one person to own another person. It is a major reason that we declared our independence. We are--how shall I say this--in a position to offer asylum to those who would prefer not to be owned."

I have no idea how my facial expression read at this moment, but I'm pretty sure it was surprise. I locked that down and returned to neutrality, or neutrality as best as I could manage, as quickly as I could manage, but I could see the Fleet Captain noting my reaction. So I decided to fight honesty with honesty.

"'Ownership' was perhaps not the best term for me to use, but it was the easiest to explain," I said, slowly. 

The Fleet Captain nodded very slightly, but didn't say anything. It was a signal that I could go on, if I wished. I think.

"There are places where people like me, who we would call--" I very quickly reviewed some possible vocabulary, though perhaps she wouldn't even notice my pause "--heavily augmented constructs, are owned by others. I was previously owned by a corporation, and hired out to do security for corporate clients. But I have been bought by a human who intends to take me to a place where I would live under a form of guardianship, but be free to do more or less as I wished." It was extremely weird to put that into words for someone else. I'd spent so much time trying not to even think about it, let alone figuring out how to phrase it for someone else. 

“And how do you feel about that arrangement, Eden, if, again, one can properly inquire?” Ugh, I was never going to be able to imitate her diplomatic tone, and I hoped she didn’t hold it against me.

I let myself pause noticeably to consider the question, as it seemed fair to do so. At this point I wondered if I would make it back into known space, If I would make it to Milu, and if I could get the information I gathered on Milu back to Mensah successfully. Those were huge fucking ifs. But if I was lucky, I'd never see any of these people again anyway, or anyone from their entire society. I don't know, maybe that emboldened me. I went for honesty one more time. “I’m not sure I like it, but there aren’t great alternatives. And I would like to be near her and her collaborators. It turns out that they’re a highly competent and sympathetic group of humans, and I find that I miss them.”  

Wow, that didn’t feel upsetting at all to admit to a stranger. (Yes, that was sarcasm.) ”So while I appreciate your offer of asylum," I finished, "I wish to return to my human guardian.” I hoped.

The Fleet Captain gave me a full nod this time. “I understand. I wish you luck in your journey. Have you spoken much to Ship?”

Wow, that was out of left field. I wondered if she’d been observing my conversations with Ship, or if she had just heard about it from Ship. Either way, it was pretty clear that she was monitoring much more than I expected humans, even augmented humans, to do. It didn't look like she was more augmented than anyone else, but perhaps she just liked to live in the feeds a little more. I wished, again, that I could hide in some media. I couldn't blame her.

“I have,” I said. “I presume that Ship told you about the information she gave me. Your network architecture is very different from mine, but your ship is as advanced as the most advanced ones I have encountered.” Now I suppose, if this had been a first contact in media, that it would have been either highly inappropriate to share that information with someone who could exploit it for strategic purposes. But fuck it, this wasn't going to be my problem for long either way. I wasn’t a diplomatic envoy, I was a lost Murderbot far from home, just trying to get itself and its cargo ship back to familiar fucking territory.

“Our ships are very advanced intelligences, yes, and that is part of the reason I brought up the question of your legal status so quickly. It sounds as if you have some prior experiences with the ethical dilemmas surrounding constructed intelligences.”

I thought for a moment. I didn’t know shit about ethics, or anything else that wasn't part of a shitty company SecUnit training program, but I supposed I'd made a moral decision or two in my life, when I absolutely had to.

“I have, though I certainly don't know anything in particular about ethics,” I said. This was why I hadn’t even attempted to swear Ship to secrecy about what I was. It was obviously too advanced to hide from, and unlikely to hide anything from its commander, either.

“Then I think I should explain about ancillaries, and about Significant beings,” the Fleet Captain said. And so she did.

I suppose that if I were human, this would have been a really horrifying reveal. Fleet Captain Breq told me that the military in this--Radch, they called it, referring to it as an empire--that all of these people had been citizens of, had the habit of conquering neighboring governments by force. Big fucking deal, lots of governments did that. But this one took it a step farther, during these events that they called annexations, by taking prisoners that they would then hold in cryostorage until needed. When they needed more bodies, they would thaw one and hack implants into it. This would in effect kill the prisoner and at the same time make her body and wiped, reprogrammed mind into a humanoid form drones under the control of their ship minds.

It sounded intensely unpleasant, but then again, it sounded a lot like the times my memory had been wiped by the Company. It also sounded somewhat like the kinds of punishment that had been meted out by my governor module, back in the old days before I'd cracked it.

I thought about the processing power it would take to manage that many drones who were each as complex, easily, as a Murderbot. While I knew how to handle whole flocks of drones under a certain level of autonomous orders, if I had to monitor video from all a of them simultaneously, it rapidly became a very difficult thing to keep track of. While _Mercy of Kalr_ itself was a small warship, the Fleet Captain was talking about troop carriers who had, at minimum, one hundred or more ancillaries acting for them, one hundred or more human crew besides, and thousands more bodies frozen, awaiting connection as replacement ancillaries when needed.

With Ships that advanced, I was beginning to understand why these humans seemed to live less in their environmental feeds; their Ships could simply answer any question and provide any data on demand, with a query. They were used to advanced artificial minds that were simply so smart that the society depended on them. And it seemed to me that Ship had given me access nearly as complete as what she would have given to an ancillary body. No wonder it was a firehose of data. 

For humans to place that much trust exclusively in their ship and station AIs sounded like a terrible idea, from a security standpoint. If I'd been human I'd probably have shuddered. And no wonder their ship AIs felt so powerfully intense; they had to rival ART in power, if not exceed it.

The Fleet Captain sat back in her chair. “We are running simulations on the data from your ship, to find a method by which you can hopefully get home, but it will take some time. If you don’t mind, Eden, we are going to have some tea.”  Her crew member had begun preparing it in the adjoining room, I noticed, since it was clearly more of a statement of intent to have tea, rather than a request for permission to have tea.

“Please, go ahead,” I said. I wasn’t sure what tea was going to be, to them, though I was sure it would be one of those beverages made from leaves steeped in hot water that humans drank sometimes on my missions, and fairly often in some media. “Do your ancillaries drink tea as well, Fleet Captain?” I asked.

The Fleet Captain froze for part of a second, and then recovered. It was the largest reaction I had seen from her so far. I suspected there was some strong emotion behind it, just because otherwise she apparently wouldn’t have reacted at all. I wasn't sure the humans around her would have even noticed the pause.

“I think I should finish explaining a few things about ancillaries," she said. "Yes, they do eat and drink, but because neither they nor the Ships had been considered to be people, from the perspective of our culture, they do not get more than water and—" here she used a term that translated as a sort of seaweed porridge. That didn’t sound like something humans would particularly enjoy eating, but I’m really no judge.

I nodded, because that seemed like the acceptable thing to do. “I’m sure they would do that to constructs like me, if we weren’t internally powered.”

The Fleet Captain gestured with one gloved hand, as a sort of agreement. “As you say. In fact, our contention that ship and station minds are Significant beings, in terms of their sentience and capability for independent life and leadership, was really the primary basis of our secession from the Radch.”

I blinked, but I think I kept most of the rest of my reaction off of my face. “You said it had been a reason, before, but it was the main reason? You may be as intrepid a bunch of humans as my own human and her colleagues.” I meant 'stupid' as much as I meant 'intrepid,' but I knew better than to say it.  

The Fleet Captain made an equivocal gesture, and then her crew member was at the table, with a pot and bowls, to pour the tea.

 _I should mention something that the Fleet Captain does not particularly enjoy talking about, but that she has indicated that I should tell you, Eden,_ Ship said to me. _The Fleet Captain spent years as the One Esk Nineteen ancillary of the troop carrier_ Justice of Toren _, and was the only part of that intelligence to survive the explosion that destroyed the ship._

I couldn’t help it: I did shudder a bit, hearing that. All of that incredibly advanced intelligence crammed into a single human form? The troop carriers had been the largest, she'd said. 

That would be like if my brain was transferred to a single one of the small security drones I used to use on contracts. Not to a distributed system of drones, but to a _single_ drone. I felt the Ship noting my reaction. I saw why the Fleet Captain had deputized someone else to tell me about this, to be honest. I wouldn't have wanted to talk about it, if it had been me. Now I wished I could have heard the secure channel between Ship and the Fleet Captain, as the Fleet Captain had explained this to her.

 _So you see,_ Ship continued, _She was very serious when she mentioned the asylum policy._

 _I see that. Thank you, Ship,_ I said. I wasn’t sure what else to say. Shit, that was a lot to take in.

The Fleet Captain had been distracted for a moment by the pouring of tea, and I looked down to find a bowl of it in front of me, as well. “I don’t...”

“For you to smell, Eden,” The Fleet Captain said, somehow looking slightly amused while not really changing her expression at all. It dawned on me why she was the master of minuscule reactions and impressions, not that any of her people were extremely emotive: she had been an ancillary, and a ship. Still was a ship, essentially. And it seemed like everyone else on the ship had a similar style of very small, nuanced and muted expressions. Was it a form of military discipline, I wondered, or was it cultural?

The bowl of liquid did have a very nice scent, flowery with just a bit of a smoky touch. Very subtle. Subtly scented liquids drunk in fine bowls seemed to suit the proper, regimented nature of these people—not humans, all of them, but absolutely people. The bowls had a beautiful pattern in the bottom, a circle in which were three interlocking swirls of color. The Fleet Captain raised her bowl to her face, and inhaled deeply before drinking. I couldn’t blame her. I inhaled a little more of the scent.

Just then, the Lieutenant Sievarden that I'd been introduced to before returned to the room. "Breq," she said, "We have more visitors."

The Fleet Captain frowned and seemed far away for the moment, as if she was addressing Ship silently. Then Ship sent to all of us, simultaneously, in the feed: _A Presger courier ship has appeared in the system. It has hailed Athoek Station and requested permission to dock there, which Station immediately granted. It should arrive there in roughly two and a half days._

"Thank you, Ship," the Fleet Captain said calmly, aloud, though I could detect her heart rate rising, as if she was immediately on a higher alert. "Did the occupant or occupants of that ship state who they were?"

_She only indicated that it was a representative of the Translator Office, here to negotiate arrangements for a conclave, and did not give a name. Of course, we know from past experience that even if she did give a name, it might not be conclusive information._

_What?_ I asked Ship, privately.

 _I'll explain as soon as I can, Eden, I promise,_ she replied, also privately.

"Sir," Seivarden was saying, "Given her interest in both conclave planning and passing the time with Translator Zeiat, would it make sense to ask _Sphene_ if she would like to send a representative?"

"Certainly," the Fleet Captain said and smiled in a way that was less like a fluid human smile, more of a smirk. Sort of like what happens when I try to smile like a human. Oh, I liked her. "Cousin _Sphene_ is as endlessly curious about the Translators as she is endlessly vengeful toward the Lord of the Radch. I'm sure she'll want to be there herself, or send Captain Queter.

"Make preparations for myself, Lieutenant Tisarwat, and appropriate members of our decades to be at Athoek Station as soon as we can, but let Station know that we will be a few days, as we have some business to finish before we can join them."

I gathered that _Sphene_ was a ship, and it was really fucking strange to hear one AI refer to another as a relative. Could AIs do that? Clearly, these did. 

 _Oh shit_ , I thought, _I hope none of them are related to ART._

 _I will communicate these things to the relevant parties,_ Ship said to all of us via the feed.

"Thank you, Ship," The Fleet Captain said, and then she turned her gaze on me. "You have some questions."

Was it that obvious? "I don't mean to keep you from things you need to do, Fleet Captain Breq."

"That's very kind of you, Eden. It just so happens that you may want to stay clear of some of the diplomatic matters that will be happening in this system. I should explain."

Lieutenant Seivarden sat down at the table. "I should listen, mostly because it's fascinating to listen to the Fleet Captain explain this. Five, is there more tea?" The crew member nodded, and as she poured tea for the Lieutenant, the Fleet Captain explained about the Presger.

I'm not sure I fully comprehend, even now, what the Fleet Captain told me. Apparently there were a type of beings called the Presger. Of the alien species known to these people, the Presger were particularly powerful, inscrutable, and horrible. Diplomatic relations had been established with the Presger, and a treaty had been negotiated, that had at least stopped the Presger from abruptly and violently destroying ships full of humans and all crew aboard. The phrase "ripped apart" was used, and my operating efficiency definitely dropped two full percent. The Presger entered into a treaty with the existing leader of the Imperial Radch, who had negotiated on behalf of all human societies and not just her own, to reach an agreement that forbade interspecies violence.

Apparently, the Presger were going to show up, sometime soon, for an event called a conclave. This was where they would discuss the Significance of beings like _Mercy of Kalr_ , like Athoek Station's AI, and like _Sphene_ and Breq herself. There were Presger translators, who were human-like but disturbingly different from humans and, apparently, created by the Presger themselves, which arranged diplomatic events of these sorts. One of them had just arrived in-system to begin those discussions.

A conclave with the Presger didn't sound like it was going to be a fun meeting at all. But apparently Breq and various people allied with her had used this situation to secede from the Radch, which was both a very advanced civilization and about as fucked up in its own way as anything I'd heard of inside or outside of the Corporation Rim. I guess things suck for people without power, no matter where you go.  

"Our last Translator, Zeiat, was very strange," Seivarden interjected at this point. "At some point someone shot Zeiat and in response, she threw up game pieces and a whole oyster--that's a type of aquatic food that humans eat after removing them from their bony shell, only she hadn't removed the shell before eating it-- and then seemed to be completely fine."

"Shh, Lieutenant, we don't need to frighten Eden unnecessarily," The Fleet Captain said, and then looked at me kindly, as if to acknowledge that it was probably far too late for that. "But in any case, I think that since you are interested in getting calculation help and returning home promptly, it is probably for the best that we don't take the time to introduce you to this translator. It might cause complications that you don't need." 

 _The calculations aren't complete yet, but it's already clear that the best way to get you back where you belong is to use the Ghost Gate to boost your ship's navigational systems to reverse the jump that brought you here,_ said Ship, to us, in the feed.  

I nodded, and my operating efficiency rose three quarters of a percent. "Thank you."

"Now, if you will excuse me," the Fleet Captain said, "It turns out I have some planning to do. Can we offer you anything else to pass the time?"

"I have media to watch, and I'm happy to occupy myself," I said.

The Fleet Captain nodded. "Excellent. Please, ask my crew if you need anything." She paused. "I'm sure Ship would be happy to help you with finding a selection of our entertainment programs to take with you, if you are interested."

 _I have a huge number of entertainments, likely more than you have storage for, so why don't you tell me about what sorts of things you enjoy?_ Ship asked me.

"Thank you very much, Fleet Captain, I'll do that," I said, and nodded as she rose.

And then in the feed, I said, _That would make me very happy, Ship, thank you._ This was still a very weird, very worrisome set of events, but if there was new entertainment to download, at least some things still made sense.

**

 By the time _Mercy of Kalr_ told me the calculations were ready, I had a plan to download enough to nearly fill my onboard storage. It was pleasant to have banks of new entertainment lined up.

_Eden: if you would like, the Fleet Captain will come to you to go over the plan._

_Thank you, Ship_ , I said. I had considered, and then discarded, the idea of telling ship about _The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon_ . No way to predict what it liked in entertainment, I thought. But then it asked for a collection of the entertainment I liked best, so I decided to share my most watched shows, _Sanctuary Moon_ being the first among them.

I hope she liked them. I wished I could stay and watch them with her. But it was time to try to get home.

Before long the fleet captain entered, her lieutenants flanking her. "I trust your information exchange was satisfying?" She asked.

"Yes, thank you," I said.

Wall panels on one side of the room began displaying astrocartographic maps of the star system and surroundings, including the fixed gates in the system, the Station, the planet Athoek, et cetera.

"Ship has done some thinking about how to create a distraction and help you get home,  without raising the curiosity of the Presger Translator's shuttle," The Fleet Captain said as she sat, and her lieutenants sat on either side of her. "And it's really quite ingenious.  

I could sort of feel _Mercy of Kalr_ appreciating this compliment through the feed. This was weird, but perhaps I shouldn't talk, given my surprisingly positive feelings about some non-asshole humans of my acquaintance.

"We know that the translators are not very clear on the different types of humans, and they're likely to be similarly unclear on different types of ships. However, since their ships can generate their own gates, and can in fact travel by means we don't fully understand, we presume they would notice if we emitted the sort of gate generation and modulation signals we will need to produce, to convert one of our system gates into one that can take Eden and her ship home." Nods all around the table.

"However, if we travel through the Ghost Gate into the adjoining system, towing our guest Eden's ship, and then generate this signal modulation from the other end of the Ghost Gate, we think we will be able to do this undetected. Ekalu and I ran through a number of scenarios, and we are quite certain this will work." Ekalu gave the slightest of nods.

"But that raises a separate question," said Lieutenant Seivarden. "Eden, there is one ship in the Ghost System, and while she is firmly on our side in all matters of dealing with the Presger, she is terribly curious."

"Cousin Sphene is, however, also extraordinarily tight lipped when she is convinced of the need," The Fleet Captain said.

"Well," I said, shrugging. "It sounds like that's my best bet, so I guess we should give it a try."

So they contacted Sphene, and conveyed that there was some business they wanted to conduct, of a sensitive nature, on her side of the Ghost Gate. Her reply, I believe, was some variation on, "Only if you let me in on the secret once you're here."

Cargo readily agreed to the simplified version of the plan that we shared with it. Having hit a situation its navigational modules didn't know what to deal with, and with me gone for a day or two as well, it had gone into a sort of waiting mode that it ordinarily used when expecting to be repaired. Being towed somewhere for that repair to be done was a pretty expected thing for this sort of vessel. _Mercy of Kalr_ was able to make it back to Cargo much faster than I had gotten there in the shuttle, but this gave me some time to reprogram Cargo's communication protocols to communicate, on some limited level, directly with _Mercy of Kalr_ , and monitor its towing beam.  

**

The trip out to the gate and through to the Ghost System took two more days. I used some of that time to configure a transfer protocol to send some of the entertainment I had downloaded over to storage banks on Cargo, and then download more to my onboard storage. I was going to have to do some serious shuffling when I got back to my spare memory storage, and it would be nice to have a place to plug in and do faster transfers. 

As we exited the gate into the Ghost System, the ship _Sphene_ was, well, loitering a safe distance from the gate, clearly there to meet us. _Mercy of Kalr_ opened a shared communication channel with _Sphene_ and her captain, Queter. True to their description of her curiosity, _Sphene_ immediately asked, in another of those ringing bell ship AI presences in the feed, _So! Picked up another weird stray, did you?_

 _A much politer one than you were when I first met you,_ The Fleet Captain retorted.

 _Hmph! Perhaps this guest of yours doesn't have as much revenge on her mind as I do_ , Sphene shot back.

I thought about what I would have said if I hadn't been too polite to tell them how much revenge, on people and companies entirely irrelevant to them, I have an urge for. But I kept my mouth shut, because why complicate things even more? I was really starting to see why this odd group of humans and ships and former ships had banded together. I was both eager to get the fuck out of this unfamiliar territory... and a bit regretful about having to get the fuck out of this unfamiliar territory.

My hosts explained to _Sphene_ what had happened, and what they had in mind for getting us home.

 _That's it?_ She replied. _That's all your secret is?_ _No more offing the tyrant's clones? No secret missions to find more weapons she hasn't heard of, with which to destroy her? No more use of insane and dangerous tactics to disable her ships? Cousin, I'm disappointed._

The Fleet Captain smiled that intense smirk of hers, in response. _The next time I promise to include you in any such plans, if I possibly can. But just now, we need to keep the peace. Dealing with this quietly, without involving the Presger or their Translators, is the best way to keep everyone as focused on the upcoming conclave as they can be. Eden doesn't need to become embroiled in our politics, she has her own to go home to._

I could feel the sigh _Sphene_ made, over the feed from her ship. _All right, then. I'm happy to help. What's our plan?_

It was at about this point that I started filing through my media, while my hosts explained the excuse they'd come up with for _Mercy of Kalr_ to be here in the Ghost System. I think it was something about getting some new astrocartography data. In any case, _Sphene_ was soon fully briefed and working on whatever scans or readings it was that backed up the cover story--because they were actually taking this seriously enough to collect data as part of the cover story-- while we prepared to send me and Cargo home.

For the modifications of the gate to work, I was going to have to go back to Cargo and help _Mercy of Kalr_ implement a very precise clock link to Cargo's computers, which would enable Cargo to enter the gate at exactly the right picosecond to safely get us back to our home space. We had been working on the code for this over the previous few days.

With that code safely tucked away in what little onboard storage space I had remaining, the Fleet Captain met me at the airlock where my shuttle was still docked. They had already shut off the towing beam, and Cargo had moved safely out of the way under its own power. I was thankful that they were a formal group of people: there didn't seem to be any chance of a sudden request for hugs. Lieutenants Seivarden and Ekalu did join her to see me off, however. The Fleet Captain nodded and Etrepa stepped forward to open the lock for me. Then all three of them bowed, in careful unison.

"Eden, we hope your journey back to your space is successful and quick," The Fleet Captain said. "We have appreciated the chance to learn about you, while you were here. We will not tell anyone about this who we believe would wish you or other life in your home space harm." I noticed the caveat in her phrasing. But I didn't blame her: she had her own politics to attend to, and frankly, if it were me, I might use something like this as a distraction, too, some day. I didn't hold it against her.

I bowed in return. "Thank you, Fleet Captain, Lieutenants, Ship. Thank you for your help, your calculations, and your hospitality." Was that awkward? I hoped it wasn't too awkward. I turned, quickly, and ducked into the shuttle, and started cycling the door lock. 

Once the shuttle was away from _Mercy of Kalr_ 's hull, I could not longer read the Ship's feed directly, but I quickly worked out a simple relay from the shuttle's communication system. It was a short trip to Cargo's holding location, and I was soon aboard again, in the command module room, installing the clock link. While it was nice to be in the quiet of the empty cargo vessel again, with only its simple queries for company, I did find I missed Ship's feed. I set up a simple relay from Cargo, as I finished setting up the clock. I was going to need it in order to run some tests, anyway.

 _Hello, Ship,_ I said into the feed. _Ready for one last test?_

 _Mercy of Kalr_ fired up some diagnostics, measuring with incredible precision the distance between the two ships and the synchronization of the clocks. I wondered if Cargo found her presence in the link as immensely powerful and strong as I did. It was probably too limited to notice.

Then _Mercy of Kalr_ spoke to me. It was a little weird, hearing her normally ringing presence compressed for transmission. _I'm very glad we got to meet you, Eden, and I wish you the best of luck where you go next. I'm already very much enjoying this_ Sanctuary Moon _entertainment program you uploaded for me._

 _Thank you, Ship. I really appreciated getting to know you, too._ For a moment, I sort of wished I could stay and talk to her about my favorite program. But I also wanted to get as far from their strange civil war as possible, and as far from the fucking Presger as possible.

When the testing was done, there was nothing left but for Cargo to wait while _Mercy of Kalr_ did some arcane shit to the Ghost Gate with her gate generator, to make it do in reverse what had brought us here in the first place. As I waited for us to start moving again, I thought about what we were going back to. Money-grubbing corporations, squabbling humans, crowded stations on the Corporation Rim, and I had important information to get for Mensah on Milu.

 _Wait a minute_ , I thought. Alien ruins. Humans mined them for valuable artifacts and technology, both legally and illegally. There were materials there unlike anything Humans could make.

What if the Presger _had already been_ to our home space? The Presger were so advanced that they had technology people in the Provisional Republic of Two Systems and the Imperial Radch could not properly understand, much less replicate or use in more than simplistic ways. If my hosts had figured out how to get me and Cargo back home, there was absolutely no way the Presger hadn't already figured it out.

I briefly imagined the kinds of things the Presger could do to those GrayCris fuckheads, and smiled.

Cargo cruised into the gate, and we were in a wormhole. The plan was for us to be in there briefly, riding a wave generated by _Mercy of Kalr_ , that would take us to the end of what had been our first planned wormhole jump. Cargo would then stop, confirm that it was back in the space it should be in, and continue with its journey as usual.

I settled down in the ship's lounge, next to a data jack, to shuffle my media around in storage. To calm my nerves a bit, I started up an episode of _Sanctuary Moon_.

Cargo notified me as it was about to exit the wormhole, and I asked it to share the star map with me as it did.

We were back in known space, just as we should be. If I had been human, I would have breathed a sigh of relief. But I wasn't. And I now knew what was out there: superintelligent ships even more powerful than ART, a person who used to be a ship, and beings like the Presger.

I sat down on a sofa in the lounge, and went back to _Sanctuary Moon_ . I hoped _Mercy of Kalr_ was enjoying it too.


End file.
